Faculty and Staff
Novack, Ellen
has produced, directed and had a long and successful career as a casting director- She has taught acting at the Julliard School; American Conservatory; New York University; Rutgers University; Columbia University; National Theatre Institute; CSC Conservatory; Actors and Directors Lab. Ellen also founded ActorLaunch.com, which offers consultations to actors who are moving to LA or New York for the first time to further their careers or to any actor who needs career advice.
Pitman Quinn, Patrice
actress and teacher for film, television and stage- She has taught and directed in New York, Los Angeles and abroad with both children and adults. Patrice uses multiple disciplines for acting technique and works on script development as well as many workshops on Commedia del Arte. She presently teaches at the Los Angeles County High School of the Arts.
Quinn, Paul
director and writer recently directed and produced Never Get Outta The Boat, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and won the Audience award for Best Feature at the Florida Film Festival. HBO has hired him to write a pilot and several episodes based on the film. Additionally, Paul directed an episode of the NBC comedy Scrubs. Paul wrote, directed and produced his first feature This is My Father, starring James Caan, Aidan Quinn and John Cusack. As an actor, Paul has appeared in the films Avalon, Bob Roberts and Leaving Las Vegas. Presently he is setting up the next film he will direct, Good Ol' Boy, a comedy he co-wrote. He is also writing The Last Audition, with Jeremy Piven and writing a dark comedy about being fat in America.
Rae, Heather
producer-has worked in some producing capacity on more than a dozen documentaries and half dozen features through her fifteen years in the film industry. For six years Rae ran the Native Program at the Sundance Institute and was a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival. She recently produced feature film American Monster starring Adam Beach , Gary Farmer and Udo Kier. She is also producing A Thousand Guns, The Space Between All Things, and co-producing Backroads, which premiered at Sundance in 2000. Prior to her years at Sundance, she produced on CBS's 500 Nations, Turner Broadcasting's The Native Americans, and PBS' Storytellers of the Pacific. She produced the behind-the-scenes making of Smoke Signals and was an associate producer on Silent Tears. She began working on Trudell in 1992. Rae is more recently an Adjunct Professor at Boise State University and sits on the Board of Directors for Treasure Valley Television, Boise's community TV affiliate, and chairs the board for the regional True West Cinema Festival. Rae is Cherokee and a mother of three.
Reiff, Manfred
(Germany) -Director of Photography- has been shooting commercials, music videos and features for 15 years. He is a graduate of NYU film school. He worked with creativity driven commercial directors, such as Kevin Godley, Rene Eller, Mark Story, Paul Meyer and Ernest Dickerson, which allowed him to establish a unique style and esthetic. Manfred also worked with most of the preeminent special effects houses in the U.S. such as Rhythm and Hues, Blue Sky, Greenberg Associates, Mass Illusion and Peter Corbet, which enabled him to acquire a thorough amount of knowledge about the potential and problem solving solutions cinematography can offer for special effects shoots. His commercial accounts included Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Nautica and Macy's. Manfred worked as D.P. for documentaries and on three features: The Suitors - directed by Ghasem Ebrahimian and part of the official 1990 Cannes Film Festival slate; Under Heat directed by Peter Reed; and Glow Ropes which will premiered at the NY/LA Latino Film Festival on July 29, 2005.
Sadler, Doug
Writer-director- was born in New Orleans and raised on a horse farm in rural Louisiana until his parents sold everything and moved onto a sailboat. They eventually settled in Maryland and Sadler went on to graduate from Vanderbilt University. He then studied acting at the American Conservatory Theatre and later received his MFA from the American Film Institute. He is the founder of The Oregon Lab, a multi-disciplinary creative retreat which meets once a year to engage in exploratory and experimental work. In 2001 Filmmaker Magazine named him one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film". His debut film, Riders premiered on The Sundance Channel in January, 2003. His most recent film Swimmers premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. He lives in Maryland and New York with his wife Linda and son Emery.
Schellenberg, August
actor- Schellenberg has been working in television since 1970 on shows such as High Noon, North 60, Lonesome Dove and Walker, Texas Ranger. He has also worked in films such as Free Willy, Friday the 13th and Black Robe. August is part Mohawk and has been nominated for for three Genie Awards, one of which he won for Black Robe. He has also been nominated for two Gemini Awards, and has won one for the television movie The Prodigal). August will join us with his wife, Joan Karasevichi, who will assist us in the workshops.
Sinofsky, Bruce
producer- began his career as the Senior Editor at Maysles Films. In 1991, Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger formed their own production and theatrical distribution company, Creative Thinking International Ltd. Under the CTI banner, they produced several films including, Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, Revelations: Paradise Lost 2, and Where It's At: The Rolling Stone State of the Union. Many of the films were granted such illustrious awards as the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award, a Peabody Award, and a Primetime Emmy, and shown at several festivals such as the Berlin Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival. Sinofsky is also the director of Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which debuted at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, was the recipient of the 2005 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary and has been nominated as the year's Best Documentary by the International Documentary Association. He is currently developing a number of new documentary projects, including Paradise Lost 3 for HBO, a film about Chicago's legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company for "America Masters," and an installment of a ten-part series for the History Channel.
Smith, William Tyler (Billy)
international award winning director, producer, editor and cinematographer- who has worked in film and television, in both narrative and documentary. He wrote and directed several award winning narrative shorts and the feature narrative Kiss Me Again. In addition to Bily’s television work on Sundance Channel and TLC, among others, he has written and directed a wide range of moving and provocative documentaries The Third Mind; Beri-Ellen: Can You Hear Me, and most recently, Imagine a School: Summerhill, of which he is now writing a screen play to be directed by Gilles McKinnon (Hideous Kinky, Simple Twist of Fate). Billy has taught at Global Village, UCLA and the New York Film Academy
Taylor, Rodney
cinematographer- began his career shooting live sports for ESPN, ABC, TBS, and others, and in 1988 he moved to Los Angeles and began working as an assistant on IMAX films and features. Taylor has gone on to be a successful cinematographer for numerous features, IMAX films, and documentaries and has been shooting for over 20 years. His most recent work is the upcoming feature Swimmers for director Doug Sadler, for whom Taylor first worked on the film Riders in 2001. In 1999 Taylor received the International Cinematographers Guild Film Showcase Award for his work on the 35mm short film Grind. He was also the 2nd unit DP on Michael Apted’s Enough and has operated on such shows as HBO’s Carnivale and Six Feet Under as well as 24 for Fox. In 2003, Taylor received the Kodak Vision Award for his excellence in the IMAX format. His versatile IMAX credits include the Academy Award-nominated Alaska: Spirit of the Wild, the groundbreaking IMAX drama Loch Lomond: Legend of the Loch, Disney’s Ultimate X, Michael Jordan: To The Max, and Brain Power, which includes footage from the 2003 Tour de France.
